There has been a 50% increase in reported incidents of illegal dumping and littering in the past five years.

Black bin bags have become a constant feature in our green countryside in recent years. Figures obtained by the Irish Farmers Journal from county councils across the country show a worrying trend of increasing incidents of illegal dumping and littering.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) operates a National Environmental Complaints Line (NECL) and received 1,600 complaints in 2015 alone. Of these complaints, over 65% were due to the dumping of black bin bags, with another 10% due to littering. However, this 1,600 is only a snapshot of the approximately 60,000 environmental complaints county councils receive each year.

Financial cost

While litter and dumping not only causes visual problems, it also poses significant financial cost on county councils. Figures obtained from Wexford County Council puts the cost of dealing with the effects of litter at approximately €2.69m a year.

Complaints made to Kildare and Kerry county councils between 2011 and 2015 show increases of over 50% for each of them. The number of complaints increased from 729 to 1,134 cases in Kildare, and 511 to 787 cases in Kerry.

They are not alone, however, with many more counties also reporting large increases. Galway showed the most dramatic increase of 88% for illegal dumping and littering complaints during this time. Occurrences have increased by 32% in Limerick since 2011, while other counties such as Mayo have remained static over this time with approximately 700 cases reported annually.

Tipperary actually showed a steady decrease in cases every year from 2011 to 2015, with 215 incidents in 2015 –down from 836 in 2011.

While figures for illegal dumping in Leitrim remain low, there was a jump of nearly 100% between 2013 and 2014, up from 57 to 101 cases. A spokesperson for the environment section of Leitrim County Council put this down to “the introduction of pay-per-weight for waste bin collections in 2014”.

With this measure being introduced countrywide later this year, it is worrying to see such a trend.